Washington - Mrs Sarah Palin is breathtakingly unlike any other vice-presidential pick in American history - a gun-toting, mooseburger-eating former beauty queen who was once known as 'Sarah Barracuda' for her athletic prowess.
The first woman to grace a Republican ticket stepped onto the stage on Friday with Mr John McCain in Dayton, Ohio, surrounded by her husband and four of their five children, including a baby born in April.
The tableau of everyday mum-ness, however, may have masked the ambition and grit that have marked Mrs Palin's meteoric rise in Alaska.
Two years ago, she knocked off the sitting Republican governor in the primary and a former Democratic governor in the general.
And on Friday, in remarks that grew sharper as they wore on, the 44-year-old came out firing.
She praised Mr McCain as the only 'candidate who has truly fought for America' and touted her son's imminent departure for Iraq.
She praised union members and women like Mrs Geraldine Ferraro and Mrs Hillary Clinton - Democrats who also reached for the highest office in the land. 'It turns out the women of America aren't finished yet, and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all,' she said.
Born of Irish, German and British stock, Mrs Palin is a committed Protestant who would lead team prayers before games of basketball - Mr Barack Obama's favourite sport.
She is still remembered for winning an Alaska school championship in 1982 by hitting a free throw in the final seconds, despite a stress fracture in her ankle.
At school, she met her husband Todd and eloped with him to marry exactly 20 years before she was chosen by Mr McCain as his running mate. 'I had promised Todd a little surprise for the anniversary present,' she said on Friday. 'And hopefully he knows that I did deliver.'
A former Miss Wasilla 1984 and runner-up in the Alaska beauty pageant, she has worked as a commercial fisherman and briefly as a television reporter.
Like Mr McCain, she has sometimes been a thorn in the side of the Republican establishment. After serving for two years on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, she resigned over a 'lack of ethics' among Republican leaders and exposed her party's state chairman for corruption.
As governor, she has struck populist positions. She laid off the chef in the governor's mansion - no need for that, she said - and often drives herself around town.
'She's got perfect political pitch,' said Mr Jake Metcalf, former chairman of the state Democratic party. 'She knows...what the public wants to hear and has been able to place her positions around those sort of issues that are important to people here.'
Yet, it is uncertain if Mrs Palin - with her conservative, anti-abortion views - will be able to help Mr McCain win over women voters who would have backed Mrs Clinton had she not lost the Democrat race to Mr Obama.
Indeed, the selection of Mrs Palin, who has no foreign policy experience, proved quintessentially McCain - daring, hazardous and defiantly off-message.
Mrs Palin is so little known that some Republicans struggled on Friday to praise Mr McCain's choice, simply because they knew little about her.
In one awkward exchange on CNN, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, who had been mentioned as a dark-horse candidate, conceded she did not know the Alaska governor.
Though Mr McCain clearly concluded that Mrs Palin could attract women voters and grab his campaign some Obama-style media buzz, he is also taking a risk that, in elevating a largely unknown figure, he is undermining the central theme of his candidacy that he puts 'country first' above political calculations.
He also risks undercutting his central case against Mr Obama.
'Here's what I'm worried about,' said Mr Ed Rogers, a Republican lobbyist. 'McCain had to protect his reputation as an opponent of status quo Washington. He had to pick someone with the shortest Washington resume. He did that. He picked someone the right wing is going to be happy about. But it's a gamble.'
Mr McCain's campaign now needs to convince the public that it can imagine, in the Oval Office, a candidate who has spent just two years as governor of a state with a quarter of Brooklyn's population.
Some Republicans argue that Mrs Palin is the more tested of the two as her executive experience as governor is more valuable than Mr Obama's legislative history.
And they maintain that she would foil Democrat running mate Joseph Biden's effectiveness in debates. The veteran senator is known for his slashing attacks, but he would now have to be careful to avoid coming across as condescending to a woman.
